Strictly speaking, it's sort of a reverse-minesweeper, since the goal here is to land on the "mines", while the goal in minesweeper is to land everywhere ELSE. :P
Brings to mind more the Zelda: Link to the Past digging game than anything else, for me. But less tedious, obviously.
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wait who is link :O
not reverse-minesweeper but now I remember Diggers so I challenge you with that https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diggers_%28video_game%29
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Link is a girl!
..no, wait, got that reference a bit off, maybe. 🙄
Hmm. Definitely played similar DOS games (eg, Dig Dug), but no, apparently never played that one. I'd still argue the Link reference is more appropos, since your character there can skip spots to dig intermittently, similar to the space cat game, while Diggers (like more recent games like Steamworld Dig) do require connecting tunnels of digging.
Really can't think of anything more appropriate (but I am interested in if you can), but since we are bringing up old DOS games, how about Maze Runner. It's like a reverse of the whole digging concept, in that you're basically the thing trying to avoid getting "dug". So kinda like an active movement Battleship variant, I guess?
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had to move from DOS now as I could not remember anything else.
But instead of running your way around building bricks, why not fight back and destroy all? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_City
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I was close, but didn't get it. This seems like it will be pretty difficult to win. Unless there is some way to know where it is going to be, I don't see how all 1000 could be found in 4 days. Nice event though.
Edit: An interesting idea would be if the coupons are not being found after a certain number of days and it looks like there will be a lot remaining, you could start reducing the total number of boxes to give better chances of finding one.
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I don't see how all 1000 could be found in 4 days
Assuming all registered SG users are active, all 1000 coupons can be found in the first day alone:
According to the total number of users in each contributor level: https://www.steamgifts.com/stats/community/users
(473*10 + 542*9 + 707*8 + 2120*7 + 3621*6 + 6078*5 + 12886*4 + 14387*3 + 18920*2 + 115115*1 + 1004341*1) / 200
or about 6671 coupons can be found on average per day (if you open X boxes per day, you have a chance of X/200 of finding a coupon, every opening is a statistically independent event)
obviously not all users are active (cg should have access to those stats), but I'm guessing he worked out the numbers according to the how many active users per level, and the probability came out to be the mentioned 4 days for all coupons to be found.
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Yeah, it would be really hard to calculate because of all the variables. Almost 1.18 million registered, but how many active, maybe around 50-100 thousand (I have no idea). Of those, how many are going to notice this event and take part? Of those, how many will continue to check each day after not winning the first time? What level are these users because that determines how many guesses they get.
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The site admin would have access to these stats and would know how many active users there are on average along with their CV level. So it shouldn't be hard to calculate the probability (rough estimate) if you have those numbers.
Something like this SQL query will give an estimate of the number of active users per level:
SELECT count(*) FROM table WHERE last_access_time > dateadd(week, -1, now()) GROUP BY level
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CG would be able to see that info and probably a lot more, but I meant that it would be hard for us users here in the discussions to be able to estimate it because there are so many variables that we would be just guessing at. Even if we knew how many active users there are at each level, there would still be a lot of guessing about how many users out of those active users would participate in the event.
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But it probably will have some other variables, and won't be only about entering the boxes, and really finding them.
Maybe the coupons appear at a certain time, instead of pure randomness for every player.
The creator sets an amount of coupons everyday, one every 10 minutes for example, it doesn't matter what boxes you choose, the winner is set by the time of sending the resolve button. If you are lucky it will be on one of your boxes, if you are not it will be on one of the boxes you don't choose. Or maybe it's a combination of both, if there are too many wins the coupons won't show until some time has passed.
That way the promotion last for several days for sure, and even if there is a flood of users that they usually don't enter here the game will still be online, and it really still is random.
I know this is not what the rules say, but this is not something that has an audit, and legally binding.
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There are actually no secret variables behind the scenes. Space cat is assigned a random box, and if you select that same box, you win. It's really that simple. I also included the winners to help with transparency.
In short, I looked at the number of active users, their levels, estimated about 3/4 of people playing daily, and then selected a number of boxes that would keep the event running for at least a few days. The number of winners will pick up once I promote the event on the homepage or send out an email, so I think we're on track for 4-7 days, which would be ideal.
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Thanks for the clarification. Sometimes I tend to be a little suspicious with this kind of games. But it's simpler not addind the rules I imagined that doing it by pure randomness and adding the number of boxes to be difficult enough so it will last a few days.
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Oh, I didn't know you were planning to promote the event. That should definitely attract some more users than just the regulars that visit the discussions, which is what I was thinking about with my comments above.
Another reason why I assumed less users will participate is because they see a chance of winning $2 and they may not find that as appealing as something like a $50 Steam gift card or the new $60 AAA game they want. Even though the odds may be better to win in this event, they may just see $2 and pass on it or try it once and then not return again if they don't win.
I am not trying to downplay the event, that is just what I was thinking about how people would see it and participate. I know there is a total of $2000 being given away and I would be happy to win $2.
Either way, it will be a fun event and I am grateful to both Fanatical and SG. Thanks :)
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The bots shouldn't be able to take part since they would just be programmed to find and enter giveaways.
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An interesting idea would be if the coupons are not being found after a certain number of days and it looks like there will be a lot remaining, you could start reducing the total number of boxes to give better chances of finding one.
I think I'll go this route and drop it down from 200 to 140 boxes starting tomorrow to speed up the game a bit.
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I was thinking of something more gradual that would make it more interesting and keep people wanting to come back, but it would probably require more programming. You could make it reduce the total number of boxes by 5 or 10 each day and stop at a minimum of something like 50, if the game continues that long. Then if you don't win, you know that each day you return to play again, you will have a higher chance of winning.
Or you could have it stay at a total of 200 boxes, but have it remember each users choices. Then the next day, all the boxes you previously chose from the start of the event will remain grayed out. This will obviously require a lot more programming though because you would need to store the choices of each user and the winning box would have to be placed randomly only in one of the remaining boxes for that user. It would probably also cause some complaints because it would give an even bigger advantage to the higher level users and people would say that they shouldn't have such a big advantage to win money because they probably already have a higher expendable income which is why they are at higher levels.
Either way, it's not a big deal and I don't really mind how you do it. I will be happy with anything.
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I don't won today, but congrats to the 3 that already won when I post this
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Boy I was so close at 1 of 5 attempts. Love this. Brings my ludopathy back.
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Didn't win, but Bump! And thx for interesting event! 😊
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The Space Cat has eluded me!
Thanks for putting together this event with Fanatical. :)
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Hi SG,
Fanatical have provided us with a list of 1,000 coupons, each worth $2 (USD). If you don't use Fanatical, check them out, they have lots of great deals and bundles for Steam games. Their affiliate links also help to keep the lights on here, and they've always been supportive of our community over the years.
Now, since this is SteamGifts, the obvious choice is to give all of these coupons away. First, a few notes...
To distribute the coupons I setup a little mini-game for people to play.
https://www.steamgifts.com/fanatical-coupons
200140 boxes above.Have fun and good luck!
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